Farmington Civic Theater has new all-you-can-see movie membership

People aren't going to the movies as often as they used to. Scott Freeman has a solution: give them unlimited access to the films they're already not seeing.

It's actually more logical than it sounds.

To start with, many of his customers have an allegiance to a theater and not just an attraction to what might be showing there. Buying a membership to the city-owned Farmington Civic Theater means supporting an art nouveau classic that's so old it's been around two months longer than Sam Waterston.

Besides, the cost is only $15.95 per month — or $34.95 with popcorn and drinks — and what if you really, really like "Top Gun: Maverick"? Or you don't have air conditioning at your house? A membership could already be the best thing since Raisinets.

"If you see two movies per month, where the regular price is $8.50, you're ahead," Freeman noted. Even if you prefer matinees at $5.75, it only takes three screenings to edge into the black.

It might be a more arresting offer at a theater with 20 screens instead of the Civic's two. But the Civic manages to schedule four to six first-run movies each month, and it has history and unusually good popcorn on its side.

The popcorn does not get unloaded from a truck in giant plastic sacks. It tumbles from a big, loud popper that does its fragrant duty in full view of customers, and sometimes staffers prop open the front door in downtown Farmington to lure passers-by with the aroma.

The history starts with architect C. Howard Crane, whose better-known and far larger works include Olympia Stadium and the Fox Theatre in Detroit.

The Fox opened with 5,174 seats in 1928. The Civic came along in September 1940 with about 700, each of them wooden, narrow and unsuited for modern audiences.

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Freeman came along much later, in 2010, after the theater had been partitioned into 273 comfortable seats downstairs and 132 in the former balcony.

At that point, it was showing second-run movies and losing money. As a Farmington resident, he'd been offering unsolicited cures to the city manager, who finally said, "OK, you run it."

He already had a job, as technical director of the WKBD-TV (Channel 50) newscasts that featured Amyre Makupson, but he took on another.

"I didn't know much about cinema," he said, "but I knew about putting on a show."

'Leave it old-school'

Now he knows about the movie business, too.

He learned, for instance, that showing second-run movies no longer worked once movie studios started delivering new releases straight to Netflix, or routing them there after only a week or two. So in September, a theater that opened 82 years ago with a Rosalind Russell romantic comedy called "Hired Wife" went back to first-run features.

That meant learning the term "clean," which does not refer to a G rating. Rather, it means he can't show a second movie in a theater contracted to "Top Gun" or, starting Thursday, "Minions: The Rise of Gru." And he can't disrupt the schedule to host the Miss Farmington pageant, which used to grace the main stage each year.

The Civic has been part business and part public trust since the long-term owners retired in 1999. The city didn't want a prime space on Grand River Avenue to fall into ruin, but it didn't want see a dollar store there, either.

Freeman, 60, needs to walk that tightrope while also balancing nostalgia and modern necessities.

"My goal," he says, "is to leave it old school where you can see it, and make it high tech in the background."

A massive old projector stands in a small Civic Theater museum on the way to the balcony, for instance, but today's movies arrive on hard drives and are shown digitally. The 158 lightbulbs beneath the marquee on Grand River Avenue have been converted to LED.

Anything that looks like a neon or argon light, however, is exactly that, even if they're finicky and somewhat expensive to maintain.

Movies may be based on illusion, but Freeman knows what's real, and he can't fool himself.

A forever fan of theater

Five or six dozen people have become members since the all-you-can-see program launched June 1, Freeman said. In another benefit to running a theater that's simultaneously a city department, he's expecting an uptick after a promotional flyer shows up in the next round of water bills.

Meantime, he's not shy about spreading the word.

The first customer in the main theater for Tuesday's matinee showing of "Elvis" was Sandi Guntzviller of Redford Township. "Elvis died 45 years ago," she said, "a month after my mother."

Freeman offered belated condolences, then took the opportunity to promote coming attractions.

On July 7, he said, "'Thor" will replace "Elvis.'"

She corrected him: "You can't replace Elvis." But with her loyalty to the King established, she was open to discussing a monthly pass.

"I've been coming to this theater forever," she said.

"That's how long we've been here," he said, and if a few more subscribers sign up, the lights will still be burning bright when "Elvis II" comes around.

Neal Rubin is still getting royalties from his six-word role in the 2011 political drama "Ides of March." The last check was for $2.32. Reach him at NARubin@freepress.com, or follow him on Twitter: @nealrubin_fp.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Farmington Civic Theater monthly passes to lure movie watchers